Sick and Twisted
by paganpunk2
Summary: The Joker has cooked up a cruel game for Batman, Nightwing, and Robin, and the only way out is to play through to the end. High-end T for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Here's the beginning of a little idea that popped into my head a few days ago. It was just too juicy of a premise to pass up, so here you have it. I'm guessing that this will end up being three chapters. Happy reading!**

* * *

The Joker tittered, deliriously pleased with his accomplishment. "It was so _nice_ of you all to come and visit me here in my humble hovel," he snickered, glancing at each of his guests in turn. "Of course it would have been easier if you'd just accepted my invitation and come quietly instead of making me go to extra effort to snatch you, but I guess that's the price of playing host." Stalking to where Batman hung against the cold, dripping wall, he leaned in close and leered. "You would think catching the great _you_ would be the hardest part, wouldn't you? But it wasn't. The hardest part was the game. Coming up with games can be difficult, you know, especially when you've played as many as I have and you want something new, something refreshing. But I think you'll agree in the end that I've got a good one this time."

"I don't play games, Joker," Batman growled.

"No," the villain's lip curled as he backed away. "No, you never have, have you? But do you know who _love_ to play games, Batman?" His turned eyes sparking with insane eagerness to where Nightwing and Robin were pinioned nearby. "...Children."

_No,_ the cowled figure bit back an exclamation. _No. Not my boys. You keep your hands off of them, you sick son of a bitch._ _Wasn't Jason enough?_

When he didn't offer a rejoinder, the Joker frowned. "Being antisocial again, Batsy? Let's see how long that lasts once you find out what's entailed in tonight's little amusement. Bring them!" he shouted at the armed men ranged around the wide basement. "Pay attention, birdies," he addressed the younger two of his captives. "Pay _close_ attention. In a minute you aren't going to be tied up anymore. But that doesn't mean that it will be a good time to run, or to try and fight your way out of here. No no," a silky warning slipped from his lips. "If you do that – if you resist, if you struggle, if you so much as reach for your belts – you'll both get to watch dear Daddy Bat's brains be blown into an interesting new piece of graffiti." On cue, a gunman stepped up beside the senior vigilante and pressed the barrel of a pistol to the unprotected underside of his chin. "And none of us want that, now do we?"

Both Nightwing and Robin wore tight grimaces as they were nudged towards the table and two chairs that sat in the middle of the room. A floor lamp with one sputtering bulb clicked on in the corner, and as its spotlight was trained on the furniture Batman could make out the chains holding each piece securely to the floor. _ Damn. That eliminates the possibility of them flipping the table or going over in their chairs as a distraction or the beginnings of an attack,_ he cursed. _What haven't you thought of this time, Joker? There's a way out, there's __always__ a way out...you may have gotten hold of us, but none of us respond well to taking orders from madmen. Never have, never will. There's a way, I just have to find it..._

"...Now," the Joker began, circling as Nightwing and Robin were shoved down into seats and their legs were shackled to the cracked concrete underfoot. "The game is simple, and that's why I like it." A revolver appeared in his hand. "Russian roulette," he grinned darkly. "The beauty of the thing is that you don't dare risk pointing it at me or, say, one of the guards and having the hammer come down on an empty chamber. If one of you _does _try that," he promised silkily, "he'll get to watch the other two die. Although I have to wonder if either of you would dare to break the family gun code to begin with...well, we'll find out in a minute, won't we? But it doesn't matter; even if neither of you gets stupid, someone's going to lose their head tonight." He paused, slowly took in the entire scene he had brought together, and drew a deep breath. "...Let's begin."

* * *

_ I have to stop this,_ Batman thought desperately._ He's got me so well secured that I can't even move my head to radio for help, they're both chained down, there are guns pointed at all of us, and there's no way anyone can make a move without at least one of the others being shot point-blank, but...there must be something. Some error. Some slip up. Some escape..._

It had started less than three hours before, and the speed with which events had progressed was startling to the man dangling in the dilapidated basement and watching his sons prepare to die. Nightwing was in Gotham on a long weekend, and when the trio had set out from the cave it had seemed as if that night's patrol would be a fairly standard one. There had been no warning of the breakout that was occurring within the walls of Arkham as they split up, Batman heading for downtown while the younger vigilantes swung towards Crime Alley together. When the signal had appeared against a backdrop of low clouds just past midnight, none of them had hesitated to hasten towards it, believing it to be a legitimate call for help.

Batman had been the first to arrive. _...The Commissioner's office is dark,_ he'd paused, peering up at the building from ground level in consternation. Jim Gordon, he knew, had long ago taken up the habit of leaving every light blazing in his office if he was going to be so much as in the building after dark, his reasoning being that it should have been more difficult for the cowled man to sneak in on him that way. It was a dead-end hope, of course, since Gotham's protector could appear and disappear almost as easily in daylight as in dusk, but it served as a convenient indicator on nights when Batman needed to speak with the Commissioner and didn't want to waste time going in only to learn that he wasn't available.

Now the light's absence served as a warning, causing him to take a step back to reassess. _The signal looked right, so it can't have been a fake...I suppose that whatever's going on might involve Gordon, but if so who ordered the light? The Deputy Commissioner would sooner see me in cuffs than on the case, and unless something's happened to both of them no one else has the authority to call me..._

His reasoning had ended there thanks to the flash-bang that was dropped directly in front of him from the roof three stories above. He fell backward, unhurt thanks to his armor but with his ears ringing and his eyes blank. _Who the hell is up there?! _He struggled to regain his feet quickly, expecting a further attack from his unknown adversary, but the momentary blindness and hearing loss he was laboring under hamstrung him. Getting to his knees, he groped for a smoke grenade in the hopes of giving himself cover under which to retreat and call for backup, but the disturbance to his perilymph was such that he ended up flailing at the air in front of his belt rather than grabbing on to it. _Fuck!_ _Who's idiotic enough to set off a grenade this close to police headquarters?!_

Still struggling with his tools, he'd stumbled upright swayingly, his vision beginning to return in the spaces between the spots that were swimming vigorously by. He had exactly enough awareness of his surroundings at that moment to realize that someone was rushing towards him, but lacked the coordination to fend them off despite the ferocious snarl of warning that tore from his throat. His assailant quailed at the sound for only an instant before driving their fist upward and into the vigilante's chin, causing the spots, the ringing, and the vague sensation that he was going to be sick if he didn't lie down very soon to fade away.

He had woken to find himself spread-eagled, his mouth tasting of blood and his ears still displeased with him. His vision, at least, had cleared, and as such he had been able to see Nightwing and Robin trussed up to one side of him. Noting the armed men who stood a safe distance away, watching nervously, he'd said nothing as the other masked figures began to stir, uttering faint groans of complaint. _I'm guessing whoever planned this used the same technique on them as they did on me,_ he logicked. _Alfred's going to have a field day when we all come home with pounding headaches later. _It had been at that moment that he Joker stepped into the room, revealing himself as the orchestrator of their pain and forcing him to amend his thought. ..._If__ we all come home. _

The odds of them all making it to dawn with naught more than headaches were looking extremely slim a few minutes after that bitter thought had crossed the cowled man's mind. Leering, the psychopath slammed the revolver down in the middle of the table and reached into his pocket. "There's one other thing to keep in mind, birdies," he advised. "_No heroics_. If one or both you thinks it would be cute to put the gun against your head and pull the trigger until you _find_ the bullet in a pathetic attempt to save the other two, think again. If you do that, not only will you _not_ save their lives, but you'll make their misery last longer. I promise, if you take away my fun by being 'brave,'" he sneered behind air quotes, "I will do things to the ones you leave behind that you can't even imagine.

"So," he smiled anew, a quarter appearing in his hand, "Nightwing, you're heads, and Robin, tails." Pacing back to Batman, who was reassessing every detail for the third time in the hopes of finding something, _anything_, that he'd missed, he halted. "You're going to call it in the air," he ordered, "or I'm going to shoot one of them myself."

The coin sailed upward without warning, barely giving the vigilante a chance to answer before it plopped back into the madman's palm. "Tails," he barked. _I'm sorry, Tim, it doesn't mean anything,_ he swore silently. _I had to say one or the other. It doesn't mean anything..._

"...It _is _tails," the Joker announced. "You know what that means, Batsy?" He went on when his only answer was a glare. "It means that _you_ get to pick which of them goes first." His voice dropped back to a threat. "_Quickly._"

_...But then why did you go through the hassle of the coin to-...oh,_ Batman realized. _You fucker, you labeled them and then made me pick just so that a little wedge of doubt would be driven between me and whichever one of them I said. Now you're doing it __again__, and you know I don't dare choose Tim this time and compound the injury...but I don't want to watch Dick put that gun to his head. I don't want to watch __either__ of them do it, and I __won't__ watch them do it on __my__ word!_ Enraged, he tried to struggle, but it was pointless. The very little movement his bindings and chains allowed him only caused him to chafe against his suit, and it wasn't sufficient to allow him to make any sort of progress towards freedom in a reasonable amount of time. _If one of my boys is going to die here tonight, I won't be the person who chooses them!_

"Pick!" the Joker shrieked suddenly. "Pick, or they _both_ die!"

"Batman!" Nightwing's voice cut in. "Batman," he repeated as the villain turned to him, intrigued. "...Choose me."

"No!" Robin protested instantly. "Batman, _don't_!"

_...Damn it, Dick, I know you're just doing what you always do, but that doesn't make this any easier,_ the elder crime-fighter lamented, going limp. Still, he knew, he had little choice; he had to select one of them to start or run the very real risk of losing them both immediately. Choosing Tim at this juncture would lead to ugly questions down the road no matter what combination of the three of them survived the night, and that left him with only one option. "...Nightwing," he gave in morosely. "I...choose Nightwing."

"Very good, Batman," the psychopath reached up to pat his cheek condescendingly before turning back to the main event. "Get their hands," he directed two of his men, who stepped forward with half-circles of iron that had been sharpened to a point at each end. Grabbing their captives' left hands, they hammered the arcs down over their wrists until their arms were snugged tight against the grimy wood, then moved back to make room for their boss. "...Remember," he leaned down to the two costumed figures, affecting a paternal air, "you play by _my_ rules here, not yours. The only way you can save each other," his teeth shone in the glare of the spotlight, "is by being the one who lands on the right cylinder." He slid the gun to his left, leaving it in front of Nightwing. "The funniest part about it is that if you _are_ the chosen one," he crowed as he straightened, "you'll never know." Batman felt his heart sink as his eldest slowly reached for the revolver with his free hand. _I don't know how to get us out of this without someone taking a bullet in a lethal area, _he cried to himself._ Even if I did, I would have virtually no way of relaying the plan to either of you. __Damn__ it! Damn __me__, always me, never either of them! If someone has to die tonight, it should be me._ His eyes flicked to the once-more giggling Joker, whose excitement was as tangible as that of a child on Christmas. _But I don't get to make that choice, and damn me for that fact. Dick...Tim...forgive me..._


	2. Chapter 2

Nightwing had run the same numbers as Batman, and was as well aware as the elder vigilante that they were utterly cornered.

_Those are AR-15s the guards are carrying,_ he mused, trying to ignore the insane figure prancing around delightedly . _ If we so much as twitch funny, they won't even really have to aim to kill us. _Not even their top-tier body armor would be sufficient to stop a flurry of bullets at such a close range, he knew from hundreds of hours of lectures, training, and being shot at both in his day and night jobs. _ This is bad. We have no choice but to play through, not if any of us are going to stand a chance of surviving. They __have__ to survive,_ he ruled. _If someone's going to die here tonight, it...it has to be me. I don't particularly __want__ to die, but Gotham needs Batman, Batman needs Robin, and I need them both to be safe, even if...even if I can't be here to see them get all the way home. This is the only way._

His course determined, he picked up the revolver. _Every time that I've thought I might die at the end of a gun,_ _I never dreamt that I would be the one pulling the trigger, _he marveled, weighing it breifly. _It's sort of surreal, thinking that I'm about to...well, to kill myself. I always figured that when the time came I'd...I don't know, be a bit more resistant to going. I guess it's easier knowing I'm dying for a good reason – the best reasons – but...it's still strange. _

The barrel was warmer than he'd thought it would be as it nuzzled up to his temple. _Joker's residual body heat,_ he thought, automatically trying to explain the strange sensation. _Gross. _A faint whimper forced his attention to shift from the pressure against the side of his head to his brother, whose wet, pleading gaze he could easily picture despite the masks between them. _Close your eyes, Timmy,_ he bade him silently. _I know the pain of watching someone you love die first hand, and I don't want that for you. Or for you, Bruce,_ he glanced to the man hanging helplessly nearby. _You've felt that jolt far too many times. I don't want to be another hole in your heart. Not...not like this._ _Close your eyes, dad, please._

Resting his finger gently on the sliver of metal that was all that stood between him and a very good chance of death, he stole one last second to address the only two people in the room he cared about. "...I love you both," he said firmly, holding back the quaver that had taken up residence in his throat lest his survivors someday look back on this night and question the honesty of his sentiment. A half-sob escaped the teen across from him at that, and before his resolve could waver under the sound he fired.

_Click._

Long groans escaped both of the figures at the table, one sounding relieved, the other disbelieving. _Damn it, __no__! _Dick screamed silently. _No! I'm not letting Tim put a gun to his own head, I'm __not__! _His finger spasmed above the trigger, held back from emptying whatever was in the rest of the cylinder into his brain only by the wicked certainty that the Joker would follow through on his promise to gift explicit pain to Batman and Robin if he succeeded. _...There's still two more chances, _he told himself, trying to calm down. _Still two more. It won't be Timmy, it can't be, I...I can't lose another little brother. Three or five, the bullet will be in three or five, and it will be __me__. It has to be me. Please..._

_ "_Ha_ha,_" the Joker guffawed when his captive's head wasn't showered across the room. "Such a disgusting announcement of your precious _feelings_, and all for nothing. Aren't you embarrassed?"

"No," Dick retorted distantly. "I didn't say what I said because I could have died, I said it because it's true in life _and_ death."

"True or not, it's pathetic. Weak."

"It's not a weakness. _Lack_ of love...now that's a shortcoming."

"You-" a snarl started.

"Nightwing," Robin broke in, holding his free hand out. "Give me the gun." "...Robin...No..." _ No. I can't let you do this_...

"Give him the gun," the psychopath ordered, all joviality having vanished from his voice in the space of their short argument. "I shit you not, Nightwing, I will flay them alive in front of you if you try anything stupid. Give him the fucking gun!"

_I __can't__, _he insisted silently. _But if I don't...they'll die. He'll torture them to death, both of them, if I don't_- "Here," he whispered in defeat, turning the weapon around and handing it over butt first. "Robin-"

"Don't," the younger male begged him. "It...it has to be this way."

"...Wait, what?" _No, Timmy, you're not dying here tonight,_ Dick's eyes narrowed behind their lenses. _No. The bullet's in three or five, it has to be, it __has__ to be, it can't be you..._

"It's okay," Tim gulped. "It...it could be worse, I guess. Better than being tortured to death, and...well, at least this way there won't be as much risk of my being unmasked afterward, right? Short of a DNA sample, at least."

_Trust you to think of the practicalities of blowing your own head off, _he winced. _But that's not how this is going down. It's just...not. _No matter how desperately he wished for that to be the case, however, he could do nothing but watch as the teen rested the revolver's muzzle just in front of his ear. _...Wait..._

"Nightwing," Tim's voice nearly cracked, "I love you too. Batman...I'm sorry I wasn't a better partner."

The cowled man visibly started at that. "Robin," he murmured, sounding pained.

"You're a fantastic Robin," Dick protested. "Don't you dare think anything else."

"But not as good as yooooou were," the Joker taunted. "He'll never be as good as you, Nighty."

_'Nighty'? Great, his nickname for me is a piece of lingerie. That's not disturbing in the least. But that's not the point, _he shook himself. _I don't want Timmy walking out of here tonight after...after I'm gone...thinking that he's less worthy or something ridiculous like that._ "Don't listen to him," he directed. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know _you_. But we do," his free hand indicated Batman and himself, "and we think you're a great Robin. Okay?"

"I don't know you?" the Joker verified. Frowning ferociously, he stepped back up to the table and slammed one fist down in a fit of rage. "_I _don't know _you_?! _Bullshit_, Nighty! That's fucking _bullshit_!" Enraged, he delivered a resounding open-handed smack to the back of Nightwing's head, throwing him forward onto the table. "I know _all_ of you!" he pointed to each of the imprisoned three in turn. "_You're_ going to be a wreck no matter which one of them eats the bullet, Batman, but you won't lose your head completely so long as it isn't this one," his palm slapped the younger man's face down to the wood again as it began to rise, "who's so full of good will and idiotic emotions that it makes me want to puke.

"And _you_," he jabbed his finger towards Robin, who sat with the gun still pressed to his head, "despite your well-timed feelings of inadequacy, you're still trying to figure a way out of this. The other two have resigned themselves, at least until some opening they didn't think of before appears, but you...you're too smart for your own goddamn good and think you can manipulate the game. What are you hoping for, that you'll angle things in just the right way that the bullet doesn't kill you?" Two high spots of color rose into Tim's cheeks, giving the truth away. "I thought so. Even if you ended up with brain damage, I suppose your being alive would be some sort of balm to them. But that's no fun, so we're going to add a new rule; if the gun goes off and you don't die, the others do. That applies to both of you, so stop trying to cheat. No tricks, no urban legend attempts, none of that garbage! Now _play!" _his hand bounced off of the table once more before he retreated.

_...Ow, jesus, _Dick groaned, lifting his head experimentally and wiping at the wetness under his nose. _I don't think he broke it, but that __hurt__. Asshole._ Blinking back tears of pain, he looked up at his brother once more. "...Robin," he begged, his voice stuffy as the bruised tissues of his face began to swell.

"_Pull the fucking trigger!"_ the Joker shrieked.

..._Click._

"Oh thank god," Nightwing whispered. _Timmy...you didn't...you're not...give me the gun. Give me the gun so that maybe you never have to pick it up again. This time...it will be this time..._ "Let me have it, Robin," he held out his shaking hand. A few drops of the blood he'd smeared off of his upper lip splattered from his fingers to the table as the weapon was handed over. He made to pull back, but Tim's grip tightened on his wrist. "...What?"

"...Let's go fast, okay?" the teen begged. "No...no more talking." He tilted his head infinitesimally towards the watching psychopath, indicating silently that it was he whom he could no longer stand to hear. "Let's just go fast, and try not to look at each other when we're...you know? Please?"

_...Oh, little brother..._ Dick felt something twist in his chest at that desperate plea. He hesitated before answering, expecting an objection from the Joker, but none came. "...Okay," he nodded. "Okay. We go fast."

"Yes, go fast," the madman crooned. "Go fast so Uncle J can see if he remembers where the bullet's waiting for some lucky birdie."

"...Wait," Dick gaped. "You _know_ where the bullet is?!"

"You sick son of a bitch," Batman rumbled from the background.

"Of course I know where it is, I loaded the gun, didn't I? I spun the cylinder, right? I couldn't help but look," the Joker said defensively. "What good is playing god if you don't know what's going to happen in the future? I know where the bullet is," he preened, "but I'm not going to tell."

_Typical. I should have known he looked, the creep. _Drawing a deep breath and closing his eyes, Dick raised the revolver back to his temple. _Fast. Timmy wants us to go fast, to get it done. I can't blame him for not wanting to hear any more, but...I wish I had just a little more time. I can't think like that, though,_ he straightened as much in his chair as his numb, shackled left arm would allow him to. _I have to do this. I have to do it for them. He...he wants me to go fast, and if I have to go now...I want it to be fast. There's no point in drawing it out..._

_Click._

"No!" he exclaimed involuntarily. _Halfway done. Halfway through. There's a sixty-six percent chance it will be him now, not me. Nooooo..._ "Robin-"

"_Fast_, Nightwing!" the teen was already reaching out for his turn. "Don't give him a chance to talk!"

"Gonna blow your brains out, gonna make some fun," the Joker immediately began to sing.

Dick bit his lip so hard that he tasted copper as he gave the weapon up. "Fast, Robin," he agreed wearily. _Go fast. I want it to be my turn again, so I can stop worrying that the bullet's in chamber four, after all. It'll be in five. It __has__ to be in five._

"...gonna get two birdies with the same hand gun..."

_Click._

"Fifty-fifty," a teary smile inched across Nightwing's lips. _Much better odds. It just...it just has to be this one. It has to be. It __is__, _he promised himself. _It is._ His fingers tried to stiffen, some primordial part of his brain clawing for survival. _I know you wanted to go fast, Timmy, _he considered as the revolver landed back in his hand, _but...give me one last second. The bullet __has__ to be in this one, and...and I just need one more minute, okay?_

He glanced around, his eyes devouring every crack and shadow they fell upon in a needy attempt to see as much of the world as possible before they closed forever. The basement smelled of wet mold and sweat, he discovered as he took a final breath, although the latter aroma was probably just his own terror filling his nostrils. His mouth went dry, his skin crawled, and the only sounds that his ears registered were the thrum of his agitated pulse and the perverse song the Joker was still chortling.

"...Batman might have just killed his favorite son, wonder if the other one will come undone?"

"Shut _up_, you fucking prick!" Robin shouted suddenly.

_This is it. I'm going to die now. Bruce, Tim, Alfred...I love you all so much. Forgive me for leaving you like this. I wish I didn't have to, but...it's worth it. _Satisfied that that was a worthy last thought, he raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

_Click._

For a bare moment, nothing moved. Then the Joker threw his head back and roared with amusement. "Only one spot left, Robin! Only one spot left!"

Before Dick could do more than begin to feel a wail of denial building up, the gun was snatched from his fingers by the frolicking psychopath and shoved across to the younger vigilante. _Give it back! _he railed uselessly. _ Not Timmy, damn you, you freak, __not Timmy__! _ "Don't do this," he entreated the teen. "_Don't_!"

Robin glanced at the weapon he once again held, then over to the Joker, who was hugging himself in his excitement. After a second he turned back to Nightwing. "...What else am I supposed to do?" he asked plaintively, hesitation and terror coming out in his tone as the reality of what was about to happen sank in. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"If he does anything but put that gun to his head and pull the trigger, you _all_ die!" a reminder rang out.

_Shoot that twisted fucker,_ sat on the edge of Dick's tongue. _Kill him. Yes, we'll all die, unless for some reason the guards don't follow his orders once he's down, but...oh, god, what am I saying? Bruce...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I...god, the last thing I want is for Tim to kill someone, even if it is the Joker, but...I don't know what else to do. I don't know what to do! _"Batman," he turned to his mentor. _Do something. Say something. You...you've been calculating all this time, figuring a way out, right? I should have been doing the same thing, I know, but to be fair I was a __bit__ distracted. Say anything, just...you can't just hang there silently at a time like this, damn it, Bruce! I know there's nothing you can do or you'd have already done it, but do something anyway, __please__! Make him stop!_

_ "..._The only options are all intolerable," a thick-voiced response was given. "I'm sorry Nightwing, Robin, but...I have no answer."

"...What's it going to be, Robin?" the Joker pressed. "Do you take a shot at me and doom the rest of the family and yourself to being cut down, or do you do the _noble_ thing and put the gun to your head one last time? You know, though," he went on before Tim could respond, "I have a better idea. Let's make this interesting, hmm? If you go for me, I'll still shoot _them_...but I'll let you live, just for being ballsy enough to buck Daddy Bat's ethics. Who knows, you might not even kill me!" he exclaimed throwing up his hands and shrugging. "How's that for a deal?"

Robin boggled at the villain for a long moment before giving a reply. When he did finally speak, he deadpanned three words that made Dick's heart stutter.

"...Fuck you, Joker."

Nightwing and Batman both screamed, their ululations sounding more like the protests of vitally wounded animals than those of men, as the trigger was pulled for the sixth time.

* * *

**Author's Note: Stick with me, lovely readers!**


	3. Chapter 3

Tim opened his eyes to find that they were still safely encased in his skull. _It...it didn't go off,_ he marveled. Lowering the gun from the side of his head, he stared as it shook in his hand. _I should be dead right now, except...it didn't go off. _

"Robin," he heard his name mewled. He looked up to find Nightwing's free hand clawing its way across the table, and as desperate pressure was applied to his wrist the reality of continued living struck home. _I'm alive. I'm alive, but...jesus, that was awful. Dick... _A tide of guilt rose in the pit of his stomach as he felt the quiver running through the other man's arm and realized how much pain his nearly blowing his own head off had caused. _Dick, I'm sorry...I didn't have a choice, though, did I? I couldn't do anything else...but what happened?_ _It should have gone off, I should be dead...unless..._

Suspicious now, he glanced back at the revolver. "Nightwing," he breathed, "I need my fingers for a second." The man's reluctance was palpable, but he let go, and Tim immediately moved to roll open the pistol's cylinder. _Holy shit, Joker, that was cruel even for you,_ he accused silently as six barren slots presented themselves. "It wasn't loaded," he informed the room hollowly. "It was empty the whole goddamn time."

A stony silence greeted those words, cut only by the giggles rising from the madman a few feet away. Even the guards exchanged uncertain looks as their employer's amusement swelled, rendering him nearly unable to stand under the strength of his bellowing guffaws. _This is...what __was__ that?_ Tim puzzled as his restrained limbs trembled with a mixture of rage and fear. _Why? What was the point?!_

"Your f-f-_faces!_" the Joker rocked with laughter, holding his stomach. "And," one finger rose to point unsteadily, first at Nightwing, then at Batman, "the _screams_. Oh, I hadn't counted on those, but they were _marvelous_." Gasping for breath, he stumbled to the table and leaned against it heavily. "And _you_, Robin...so certain you were going to die...so_ noble_," he snorted. "You're as disgusting as Nightwing sometimes, I swear."

"Good," the teen snapped. _What's next, Joker?_ _This can't have been your whole plan,can it? No...what's the grand finale? I don't want to assume that we're not going to die just because the gun didn't go off. That's not like you._

"Yes, you _would_ take that as a compliment, wouldn't you? Tell me, Nightwing," the psychopath swiveled to address his new target, "what's it like having a one-man fanclub following you around all the time? Do you like it? Oh, wait!" Snickering anew, he reached out to swipe at the twin streaks left by the tears that had wetted Dick's cheeks during what had seemed to be Tim's final moments. "I guess you _must_ like it, if you cried before he was even dead. And how about you, Batsy?" the Joker chortled, moving now to the man hanging on the edge of the action. "Have anything for me to collect? No," he announced, examining his prisoner. "I _suppose_ they could have been absorbed before they got to where I could see them, but it's much more fun to make the little one think you wouldn't cry for him, now isn't it?"

"...Shut your goddamn mouth, Joker," an ireful growl replied.

"Or what, you'll glare at me? Oh!" the villain took a few dramatic steps backwards, "I'm slain! Get over yourself," his voice filled with disdain. "Your looks might work on the petty crooks you specialize in, but I'm immune from repeated exposure. You can't touch me right now," he spat, "so _deal_ with it."

"...Robin."

The whisper pulled Tim's attention away from the show just as the Joker began to wax philosophical about having Batman on the wall like some sort of animal mount. "What?" he breathed back as a gloved hand covered his own once more.

"Listen...he's not done with us," Nightwing confided. "I know you probably already figured that out, but...whatever he's got planned, whatever happens...get out of here, okay? Dont worry about us, just...just _go_."

"I'm _not_ going to leave you two behind if I get a chance to escape," Tim hissed back, instantly upset. "I'm not a coward."

"Of course you aren't, but...someone has to make it out of here," the elder vigilante insisted. "Someone has to tell...Agent A...and someone has to survive to take care of the city. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer that we _all_ make it out alive, but if what we just went through was his idea of an appetizer then I don't know how we're going to deal with the main course. If only one of us can get out, it's got to be you, Robin."

_...Damn it, Dick, __no__,_ Tim struggled, his chest aching at the prospect he was being presented with. _I won't do it. Not at the price of your lives._ "...It won't come down to that," he prayed, trying to keep his tone firm. "It won't."

"But if it does," Nightwing pushed.

"It _won't_." _I won't. I won't do it, Dick. I won't._

Giving a heavy sigh, the black-and-blue clad figure squeezed his hand briefly before pulling back with a sad smile. "I hope you're right, little brother," he murmured.

"Right about _what_, Nighty?" their captor, returning from his taunting of Batman just in time to catch the last bit of their discussion, inquired.

"Right about you spontaneously combusting," Dick answered easily. "_Fuck!_" he exclaimed a second later as his face was driven into rough wood for the third time that evening.

Robin flinched at the resulting crunch. _Aaand I'm guessing that was your nose,_ he wagered silently. _That's going to complicate getting out of here, if we're given a chance to do so. It's kind of hard to run for your life when your face is swollen all to hell. _His assumption about the extent of the man across from him's injuries was proven correct as Nightwing lifted his head with a groan, his free hand trying to stem the crimson flooding over his mouth and chin. _Ow, that looks really painful, Dick..._

"I've had about enough of your cutesy attitude," the Joker snarled. "...But you raise an interesting point with your little comment about spontaneous combustion." His tone turned thoughtful as he retrieved the gun, abandoned in the middle of the table during the younger heroes' secret conversation. "Something _is_ going to explode into flames here tonight, you're right about that," a wicked grin spread across his lips, "but it won't be me."

_...Explosives, _Tim deduced. _He must have rigged the building with them. It would fit with his usual M.O., it matches the language he's using...shit. Well, maybe he'll forget that Dick and I each still have a hand free. I can't imagine his guards staying down here to get fried along with us even if he ordered them to, so we should have a little time to escape. If he leaves us a hand free we might stand a chance._ Hoping not to draw attention to his loose limb, he laid it parallel to the pinioned one and held still. _Let it slip your mind, Joker. Don't notice._

"...Do you think that's clever?" reeking breath brushed along his cheek suddenly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he responded. _Too late,_ his mind registered, his plan dashed before it could be launched. _He didn't forget. He didn't forget anything, it seems..._

"Don't _lie_ to me!" the Joker shrieked in his ear. "Do you want to look like him?" he flicked his hand towards the still-bleeding Nightwing. "Because I can arrange for that, Robin. Believe me, I can give you a nose job to match without even breaking a sweat. Is that what you want? Are you stupid enough to want to be like him in _every single way_?"

_Well, yeah, kind of, but not...not how you mean. _"No," he managed.

"Then you'd better learn how to be a bit more honest, and quick. Take me, for example," the psychopath straightened once more, clearing the air before Tim's face of his fetid body odor. "I said I knew where the bullet was before, didn't I?" No one spoke. "_Didn't I_?!"

"Yeth!" Dick shouted back, immediately wincing as the action aggravated his damaged face. "...Ow..."

"Yes! I did! And I didn't lie!" the Joker went on. The hand not holding the gun dipped into his pocket, coming back up with an instantly recognizable length of tapering brass. "I knew where the bullet was; in my pocket, just like you are, Nighty. And look," he uncurled his fingers to reveal a second tube, "it brought _its_ brother, too. How sweet. How convenient. Two bullets and two birdies, all in my hands. What are the odds of that?"

Tim felt his gaze lock with Dick's through their respective masks, and even though he couldn't see the older male's eyes he knew the exact same thoughts were going through their heads. _He's going to kill us. He'll kill us both in front of Bruce, and then leave him to either cry over our corpses or try and escape before this place blows. And knowing Bruce...knowing Bruce, if we're both dead in one go he won't even try to leave. He'll stay here and die with us. Fuck..._

"We're going to play another game," a low announcement chilled the teen's blood. "This one's a little different than before. You see, there was no _real_ danger last time, not so long as neither of you broke rank. Since you cooperated, you're all still here. Now, though," the villain snickered, "now we're playing for keepsies."

The rounds he had been jogging in his hand slipped into the revolver's cylinder, one right next to the other. "This will be a time trial," the Joker explained as he worked. "In a minute I'm going to leave the building, along with my helpers," he waved vaguely at the armed guards still arrayed about the room. "As soon as I step outside I'm going to push a button. That button will start a timer, which is attached to a series of charges I've had placed at all of the structurally important points in this building. I'm not going to tell you how long that timer is set for," he informed them, "because that wouldn't be any fun. I'd rather imagine you fearing for your lives the entire time you struggle to free yourselves." A dreamy fervency suffused his voice. "I want to picture that and know that it was real every night for the rest of my life. I think I'll sleep _very_ well with that image to rock me to sleep, don't you?"

The cylinder snapped into place. "But I'm a sporting guy," the villain went on. "I don't want to shoot trophy fish in a barrel; I want to give them a chance to lose on their own merits. I'd like you to have some ability to escape, if only so that I can be certain that you carried a measure of pointless hope in your fluttery, over-sensitive little hearts until the very moment they were blown to bits. As such, I won't be hammering down your free arms the way Robin was apparently so certain I would." He paused. "But I will be doing _this_."

Tim's ears rang the way they had after the flash-bang that had landed them in this mess as the pistol was angled beneath the table and fired. A wail of agony assaulted him an instant later as his brother lurched as far to one side as his bindings would let him, shoved over by the impact of the bullet into some part of him that Tim couldn't see. _Oh, god,_ he moaned as the pattering of blood onto concrete overwhelmed the fading echo of the gun's blast. _Oh, god, that sounds bad. If he hit an artery...jesus, if he hit an artery, you're dead, Dick. If he hit an artery, we'll never get you out of here in time, explosion or not._

He watched as the Joker patted the top of Nightwing's head condescendingly. _I'm next, _he gulped, the panic that had filled his guts just before he'd last pulled the trigger returning with a vengeance. Rustling had erupted from Batman's direction at some point in the preceding seconds, but Tim knew better than to think it would yield any result. _Bruce is helpless, too,_ he almost choked as the tittering madman drew closer and plunged the weapon back beneath the table for the second shot. _He's helpless, we're hobbled...and we're all going to die. Dick..._ He searched for the hand that had gripped his so gratefully only a short while before, pleading internally that by taking it now he might absorb some of the dauntless hope that the other man never seemed to run short of. It had gone, however, and he could only pray that it had descended to put pressure on the wound that grew larger and more lethal in his mind's eye with each second that passed. _...Don't die. We have to get out...somehow..._

His thought cut out as pain ripped from one side of his calf to the other. Air tore up and out of his throat in ragged, uncontrollable bursts, but he couldn't hear himself screaming. _We're dead,_ he sobbed internally, his foot going numb as warmth seeped along his leg. _We're all dead...even if we could get free, how are we going to walk anywhere, to Batman, or up the stairs, or...or __anywhere__? I don't want to die like this,_ a moan rattled through his brain as his eyes squinched shut. _I don't want to die like this!_

"Remember, birdies," a detestable sing-song pierced the haze of pain and panic that had overrun him, "you have a race to run unless you want this to be your swan song. The timer starts in thirty seconds." The footsteps of a half-dozen men receded before a snigger sounded from a distant doorway. "Break a leg!"

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**Author's Note: My muse really is terrible at estimating story length. Count on this being five or six chapters. Happy reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Here is chapter four! I was given a lovely new cover for this story by EveryDayArtist, who also designed the cover for 'Weekend in Bruges;' as soon as support fixes the error message I get when I try to upload it I will have that in place. If you'd like to check out more of her art, I've placed on a link to her deviantart page on my blog, which you can access from my profile or simply by googling 'fanon fanatic.' Happy reading!**

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Batman thrashed in his bindings, watching uselessly as the floor under the table darkened with blood he cherished more than his own. _Fuuuuuuck!_ he cried silently, every muscle in his body straining against the iron that held him in place. He was, an embittered section of his mind whispered, pinned up like an inverse Christ, held off the ground by his wrists and ankles, his forehead chafing and bruising despite the protection of the cowl as he lunged forward once more in a futile effort at escape. _The difference is that that mother fucker won't allow me to sacrifice myself so that they can live on,_ a sob slipped through his defenses. _Instead he's killing them in order to...to what? Kill me, too? Corrupt me, if they die and I live? Convince me with their demises to deliver him to his own?_

_ Well, it won't work that way, Joker,_ he swore. _I refuse to confront you with revenge in my veins; if I kill you for killing them, I'll have disrespected what I live for, and more importantly, what __they've__ lived for. I won't do that to their memories, the same as I wouldn't do it to Jason's. No._ His chains held fast through another squirm, pulling him back against the cruel wall and eliciting an irate bellow. _If they die, I die. That's all there is to it. But they can't die,_ his eyes bulged behind their lenses. _They just __can't__. I won't allow it, no matter what it takes..._

He could do nothing, but as one of the slumped, moaning figures at the table shifted weakly he realized that his boys still could. "Nightwing!" he hissed. "Robin! You have free hands!" _I know,_ pity flashed through him as Tim groaned at the reminder. _I know it hurts, I know tonight's been hell and then some. Trust me, I know. But you've got to __move__. You've got to get out. You've got to live._ "Get up!"

Nightwing looked up first, beads of sweat visible on his ashen forehead. "Robin," he panted at his brother. "..._Timmy,_" he broke rank a second later to address the teen desperately.

"Dick..."

_I should tell you to quit using your real names,_ Batman winced, _but if it's working..._

"Lockpicks," his eldest advised. "Get your feet loose."

For a long moment Robin didn't move. Finally, though, his free hand slid away from the ragged tear in his lower leg and moved upward, heading for the pouch in which a set of tiny tools had been kept ever since the days of Dick's earliest patrols. "What...what about our arms?" he sniffled. "They'll still be pinned."

"Gonna cross that bridge in a min, little brother," Nightwing mumbled back. His hand, too, had retreated from his wound, and although Batman couldn't see it from his angle he knew it was worse than Tim's through-and-through. _He was hit above the knee somewhere,_ he fretted over the only information he had. _There's so much blood...if the femoral's been nicked, he needs to get to Leslie, __now__...oh, god..._ He had to close his eyes as a fresh claret-colored drizzle gave in to gravity, and bit back the urge to whine right along with the liquid's previous owner. _Jesus, Dicky, baby, get something on that, now, right now, please, __please__ don't sit there and bleed out on me after everything else that's happened tonight..._

"Aaah, Christ on a _bike_," an exclamation came from the blue-and-black clad man as he fumbled something out of his belt. "Robin..." his hand flopped back onto the table with a packet between its fingers, "help me."

"Bloodstopper?" the younger male asked, contributing his free limb to tear a corner of the paper away.

"Yeah...shit," a new mutter rose as Dick tried to pour the powdery substance onto his wound. "...I don't have...thingy. Angle. The way it's in, I...I can't turn mileg enough to ap...ap..." He wrinkled his nose. "Put it on."

"Get a bandage on," Batman gave a rough order, "then try and get yourself unlocked." _That slurring isn't good,_ his stomach clenched, _and it's getting worse fast, it seems. Why don't I stock blood in the car?_ he bemoaned, grinding his teeth as Nightwing struggled to do as he'd been told. There were a dozen good reasons why he didn't, he knew by virtue of having asked that same question of himself on many other occasions, but they all felt lame when he considered what that lack of materials might cost him tonight. _Will he even make it to the car like this?_ _I think there's some time before the bombs go off – it wouldn't be like the Joker to set the timer for only a minute or two, that wouldn't be any 'fun' – but how much? Three minutes? Five? Ten? Even if they get out of here, they have to be away from the building before it blows, and clear of any men that might be waiting, too. Neither of the boys are going to be terribly stable on their feet. Hell, at this rate Tim's going to be carrying Dick..._

"Good," he complimented with a steadiness he did not feel when Nightwing cried out once more, wilting forward onto the table as he struggled to pull a dressing around his leg. "Will it hold?"

"Huh."

_I'll take that as a yes. _"Can you unlock yourself?" _Your hands are shaking, I can see it from here,_ Bruce's breath caught. _Hurry_...

"He doesn't have to," Tim volunteered, his own bindings falling away from his ankles. "I'll do it." Before Batman could ask how he intended to free his imprisoned wrist, there was a loud _pop_. The teen yelped, then yanked his left hand through the arch that had held it in place. His disarticulated thumb was already visibly swelling as he worked to snug his hanging calf back into place with a roll of gauze, then dropped to all fours with a scream. "Ugh, god, it's nasty under here," he lamented, crawling towards his brother.

"Try to keep your bad leg off the floor, and check his bandage before you worry about the chains." _Getting him out of here before the place explodes won't matter if he's too drained to make it home._

Dick gave a fresh but far from hearty wail as the dressing around his left thigh was cinched tighter. _Oh, chum,_ Bruce's chest ached, _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I should have known when Gordon's window was dark, and barring that I should have managed to warn you before I was knocked out...there's morphine at the car, I promise, just hold on...just hold on for me...please...you have to live..._ "How bad is it?" he asked tersely.

"Um...we need to hurry," Robin answered, his voice fearful as he fell back to work on the second set of shackles. "What about his hand? I don't think I can stand well enough to try and pull the metal up."

"Dislocate his thumb, like you did yours." _The last thing he needs are more injuries,_ he lambasted himself for damning his son to more pain, _but if you attempt to remove the arch and end up making your leg worse without freeing him we're right back at square one in worse shape than we started. If you go down and can't get back up, Tim, we're __all__ done for, because I don't think Dick has the strength to get out of here on his own, let alone while toting you._

"...Are you sure?" the youngest asked, his hands faltering for an instant before resuming their task.

"We're on a limited timeline, for more reasons than one. Every second counts, and a dislocation is fast." A cuff _clunked_ to the ground, its impact deadened by the congealing clots it landed in. "...He'll forgive you, Robin. He knows the situation."

"I...yeah. I know."

_You don't sound very happy about it despite the necessity, but I suppose I wouldn't be overjoyed in your situation, either. You're going to like the next thing I tell you to do even less, I think, but..._ He trailed off, his attention diverted as his eldest raised his head once more. "Nightwing, what are you doing?"

"Save your strength," Tim urged.

"Jus coupon doin' shush a goo job, kay?" As Dick spoke his free hand slithered forward and wrapped around his entrapped thumb. "...Sayva _lidl_ time..."

Batman looked away just fast enough, sparing himself from seeing the twist-and-pull that accompanied a second_ pop _and a low moan. "What did you do?!" Robin accused, pausing in his work to gape upwards as the cowl swiveled back to face them. "_What did you do_?!"

"...Muh han's free," Nightwing let it fall bonelessly off the edge of the table. "...Kinda cold in ear, huh?"

_'Kind of cold in here.' No, Dick, fight that, _Bruce begged. _Don't get cold, not yet, we're not far enough along... _"Keep working!" he barked at Tim.

"Sorry!"

_...How long now?_ the cowled figure wondered in the interminable seconds that stretched out before the last restraint holding his children in this place gave up. _How long do they have to get out? There are probably stairs,_ he realized. _How will they manage stairs? Oh, god, I didn't even think about that! Two legs between them, left hands damaged, Dick with a busted nose on top of that...I should have them call Alfred and tell him to send the plane. But it will never get here fast enough, _he wanted to stomp his foot in childish frustration, _and even if it did, how would they get in? If we're near any of the Joker's usual haunts, the streets are too narrow for it to come to ground, and they can't climb a ladder in a reasonable amount of time with their injuries...well, Tim might be able to, but he'd never leave Dick on the ground. Grappling up...jesus, why did I never have them practice grappling into the plane before? If the explosion hits before they're inside, they're dead. Even if they're in, the blast could push the plane into something...the buildings are so tightly packed...they could still die so easily tonight..._

His growing panic was punctuated by the sound of the final manacle hitting the floor. "Okaaaa_aaooow_," Tim dragged himself upright, balancing on his good leg and leaning against the table. "Dick," he reached out the grip the older vigilante's shoulder, "we've got to-"

"Ge' Bats," the elder insisted, flailing at his brother. "Ge' Bats, gedout."

"Right. I can't get to him without you, so give me-"

"Get out!" Batman interjected with a shout, unable to believe his ears. _You are __not__ wasting time trying to get me out of all these locks._ "Go! Leave me, goddamn it, and _get out_! You need all the time you can get, so _go!" Don't argue, please. Just go. Go, go be safe...it's enough for me. It's enough to know you're both out of here and on your way to Alfred and safety. __Go__, boys. Go home._

A stunned beat passed. Then;

"...Bullthit." Nightwing pushed himself up into something approximating a full sitting position, licked his blood-smeared lips, and then bit harshly into the lower flesh. Batman, who knew that stubborn look all too well, felt his hope flee. "Gimme hand, Rob. Gotta get Bats. Walk t'gedder."

"Yup," Tim nodded firmly, grasping his brother's elbow and somehow hauling him upwards without them both tumbling over. Throwing their arms around each other's shoulders, they leaned together. "We're going to have to – _ow_ – hop, I think."

"Mmm."

"It's going to – _jesus_ – hurt."

"Meh."

"Don't," Bruce begged, making a last-ditch effort to save their lives. "_Don't_. Get out, _now_, please!" _The Joker won't cut his own fun short, but that doesn't mean he's known for his patience. He won't wait forever. Go __on__!_ "Robin, think about what you're doing," he appealed to the teen, knowing a logical argument would be useless against the pull of first son's too-loyal heart in this moment. "If you go now you might have enough time-"

"All'er none," Nightwing cut him off.

"...He's right," the youngest agreed. "He not _rational_, at least not right now, but...he's right. All or none. That's how it's going to be, so...deal with it. You ready for this?" he addressed the man at his side.

"No, buuuut...one."

"Two," Tim winced in anticipation.

"_Free."_

They hopped, and Batman felt his stomach curdle at the echo of their dual howls of pain. _I'm not worth this. I'm not worth these agonies. __Get out__!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: We're breaking with the pattern a little here in that you get both Dick and Tim's POVs in this chapter. Also, I just want to extend a big thank you to everyone who's been sticking with this story through all the cliffhangers, and offer an extra tip of the hat to all of you who have reviewed. Happy reading!**

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Everything was spinning, making Dick feel as if he were riding the world's dingiest carousel. The jar of landing on his good leg after the first hop drew a rocketing complaint from the bad one which, joined with the achy throb coming from his nose – _has it sped up since that prick shot me?_ _ I think it has, a lot... – _made him wish he had the time and the strength to throw up. He tried to keep his weight off of Tim, but it was a futile effort made even more impossible by the fact that he couldn't predict which way was going to be up at any given moment. _I don't make a very good crutch,_ a note of dismay rang through his head as he felt his brother tug him back into position. _I'm slowing him down, but...he's got nothing else to lean on. _"...Nuther?" he guessed.

"Yeah," a gritted reply came, the speaker's arm tightening across his shoulders. "Another one. Then a few more."

"One ah time." _We'll get there,_ he thought wistfully. _Got to. We can't leave without Batman, that's...that's just dumb. _The cowled man's proposal a minute before that they do exactly that had galvanized him, allowing him to push back the haze at the edges of his vision in order to act. Now, however, the static was returning, bars of snow flickering across his already nauseating view of his surroundings. _Gotta hurry. 'S bad..._

"Right. One at a time," Tim concurred. "Ready?"

"...Go." They hopped, screamed, and regrouped again, and then once more. By the end of their third lurch forward, Nightwing couldn't make his mouth form the order that would send them leaping for a fourth time. "You dit," he begged, gasping.

"What?"

"You...do it," he managed to clarify with great effort. "Can't say..."

"You want me to say when we go?"

"Ya." He didn't have to look to know that there were two worried pairs of eyes on him, but there was nothing he could do to calm them. _Sorry,_ he asked forgiveness silently. _I'm doing the best I can. If everything wasn't so woozy...fucking Joker,_ a wave of ire rolled through him. _Sick, twisted fucking Joker. Shooting us was one thing, but wiring the building to explode...making us play Russian Roulette... _The cold leaching up his extremities and the memory of his brother pulling the trigger for the sixth time mingled, drawing a shudder. _Nasty bastard. Izit wrong of me to wish he'd just drop dead?_ A renewed call to action reached his ears, and he hopped another few feet, causing new shocks to rattle through his mangled tissues. _...No,_ he decided groaningly as his knee tried to give out, _no, I think itzokay if I feel that way abowhim. Oh... _His eyebrows drew together in consternation. _Shit, now my thinks are fuzzed. Mean...thoughts...fuzzy...'sbad..._

"Just a couple more now, I think," Tim's informed him, sounding strained.

The only response Dick could muster was a twitch of his fingers against the teen's shoulder. _Le's hurry. Bruce. Gotta...Bruce. Ow. Bad._ He'd lost count of how many times they'd performed their awkward jumping routine, and after they landed the next one he stopped letting it bother him. _Mebbe thiziz firs tim, _bounced around in his skull. _Time._ _Heh...Tim...time...same whatzit. Thing. Tim say go...time say go... _"Aaaahh!" he mewled, his thought cut off as he collided with something solid at the end of a leap he hadn't realized he'd taken.

"Hush," Bruce's voice, softer than anything their adversaries had ever known to come from beneath the cowl, washed over him. "Hush, now. Robin," it went on over his head as he let his weight settle in against the familiar shape of Batman's armor, "get this arm first. You'll be able to work faster if I take him."

"Right."

The warmth that had been draped along his neck vanished. _Cold..._ He moaned in protest, earning another gentle word from the figure supporting him. His undamaged leg, having borne his weight all the way from the table, trembled wildly beneath him, threatening to spill him to the floor. _Gotta...sumthin...falling hurts...thud, thud, noooo... _Summoning up what little energy he had left, he forced his good hand to scrabble upward, searching for a hold. It found Batman's shoulder without a second to spare, and his fingers curled against that solid ledge despite there being no strength behind them. _Gunna...can't...Bruuuuuce..._

"Hush, Dicky," a quiet coo answered his unspoken cry. There was a _click_ and a metallic rattle somewhere overhead, and an instant later a thick bar of heat materialized across his back. "Okay," the tone that had rocked him to sleep after a thousand nightmares soothed as his breathy gasps morphed into hiccups. "Hush. Calm down. You're all right, chum, just calm down...almost out of here now...almost loose...just hold on for me..."

_Try...Bru...can't...__hurts__...tired...can't...but...Bruce..._ His eyes had become too heavy to hold open and too sickening to look through besides, so he closed them, relying on his ears to tell his addled brain what was going on.

"Ah...problem. If I do your other arm next, you'll fall over," he heard Tim report. "But doing your legs first will leave you hanging from one arm, and that's going to hurt."

"Do the legs. I'm not risking a fall with him like this." With that, the litany picked back up. "Quiet, chum. Almost there. Just hold on..."

Dick felt himself begin to relax, and wondered distantly whether he was doing so in response to the words washing over him or because his body was giving out. _Prolly two,_ he decided. Having already determined once tonight that he was about to die, he found that the prospect of imminent physical failure fazed him only slightly. _Lees then...no carry. Fasser 'thowt me...live... _He groaned, wanting to tell them to leave him, to ignore what he'd said however many seconds or minutes or hours it had been earlier and get themselves out, but lacking the necessary control over his muscles to do so.

"Hush, baby," Bruce ordered, squeezing him. "Hush. Almost there. Almost. Just stay with me, chum. Listen to my voice." A beat passed. "Tim, _hurry_."

"I _am_. These are really complex locks..." A new clatter sounded, followed by a hiss and a jerk. "There. That's both your feet, now just your arm..."

"Right. Hear that?" the voice murmured, now coming from alongside his ear. "One left, and then we can get you out of here and home. All out together, huh? Just like you said, all together...just stay with me, chum..."

If there hadn't been a note of barely-disguised panic in the older man's voice and the bitter tang of blood in the air, Dick almost could have believed he was a frightened child again and had run to his surrogate father for comforting after a nightmare. _Cold,_ his stumbling mind cried. _Wan'...beh..._ To be curled up under a winter-weight quilt, with Bruce acting as both space heater and counselor the way he had on so many past nights, was the greatest thing he could imagine as there was a final _click_. The hand holding him up slid down to his waist, its freed match materializing on the back of his head.

"Just stay with me, Dicky. We'll get you home and in bed, and you'll be fine. Just _stay with me._"

He tried, but as he groped through the blackness enveloping him he could find no new handholds with which to climb back towards consciousness. _...Bruce...love..._ His tenuous grasp on the real world gave out, and he tumbled back into a soft nothingness. _...you..._

* * *

Tim's eyes widened as Dick went limp in Batman's arms. _Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god... _He whimpered, reaching over to the wall to steady himself. "Is he okay?!"

The lips beneath the cowl tightened to invisibility as a gauntlet moved to Nightwing's throat. "...We need to go,_ right_ now." With that pronouncement the elder vigilante bent down and swept the unconscious figure up, straightening with him draped over one shoulder. "Take my arm."

Robin did what he'd been told, his eyes not leaving the dripping, dangling head and hands of his brother as he pushed off and hopped into a tight embrace. Wrapping his fingers around his mentor's shoulder, he craned to see behind him. "Batman-" _Is Dick okay? He shouldn't be...I mean...I made the bandage as tight as I could, I swear!_

"Can you put any weight on your leg at all?" cut him off.

"I...don't know." _We have to go. We have to go now. _He straightened the violated limb, a sob tearing from his throat when his foot bounced lightly off of the floor. A burning bolt of fire ran up to his hip, but he bit down on the insides of his cheeks and ground out an affirmative. "...I'll manage." _I have to manage._ _Dick...Dick, please, don't die,_ he pleaded silently as the trio moved forward as one unit. _I can walk...I can walk, so long as you don't die...if that stupid bullet had just been in the last chamber like it was supposed to be, you wouldn't be over there bleeding out...just live, __please__, I'll walk a hundred miles like this, I'll __crawl__ them, if you'll just live..._

"How did he get the two of you?" Batman inquired as they limped towards the door through which the Joker and his cronies had disappeared.

_Are you trying to distract me from the pain, the fear, and the imminent threat of explosive death by asking questions, or are you just working out the Joker's technique tonight? _Robin wondered. _I guess it doesn't really matter, since it kind of serves both purposes. _"Flashbangs," he panted back. "The signal...was it fake? We were only a couple blocks away from the police station when...when they hit us."

"I don't know. They used the same method on me, though." There was a pause. "The Commissioner's office was dark when I arrived."

"...But the light's always on when he's in the building," Tim frowned, glancing up at the face of the man hauling him along just in time to catch a proud smirk. _...Is that for me? I...I think it might have been._

"Right. And the Commissioner or the Deputy Commissioner are the only people who can authorize the signal's use. We know the Deputy never would, and the Commissioner wasn't there to do so and doesn't like to give permission for the signal's use over the phone. Given that, it would seem like it had to be a fake, but that would be-"

"Ballsy as hell."

"Correct. Almost unbelievably so, even for the Joker."

"Yeah..." _I don't know, though. That seems like the kind of thing he'd set up just to see if he could do it,_ Tim thought as they hobbled through the doorway. "Oh, shit," he groaned when they found a narrow, twisting staircase awaiting them. "...We can't fit like this."

"No," Batman grimaced beside him, "we can't."

"How much more time-"

"Not much. Take the wall," the steady arm that had guided him across the room vanished. "I'll be right back."

He staggered sideways, grabbing the rotted handrail at the base of the steps for support as the end of a black cape fluttered by, its owner already partway to the next floor. The sight of Nightwing jostling along bonelessly on the cowled man's shoulder was too much for him to bear, and he turned his head away. _You shouldn't look so pale, Dick. I can't even hardly see you in this light, but I can still tell you're too pale. _Ripping his mind away from that gut-wrenching observation, he focused on the discussion that had broken off. _I bet_ _the signal was totally real despite the Commissioner's light being out, and he was calling us to tell us the Joker had busted out of Arkham again,_ a bitter smile creased his lips. _That would be about right for our luck._

A loud _snap_ made him start, nearly dropping him to his knees. _...Was that the start of a fuse?_ _ I wouldn't put it past him to wire the place old-school, just to make things more...hell, I don't know, more classic. It's the kind of homage he'd make, I think, countering Batman's modern technology by blowing him with something retro._

He stared anxiously towards the top of the stairs, expecting the older vigilante to reappear. _God, what if it was Bruce going through a rotten piece of floor?_ his thoughts shifted into a darker gear when the dark remained unoccupied. _As wet as the basement is, this place wouldn't even have to be that old to be falling apart. With his weight and Dick's combined...jesus, they must weigh about four hundred pounds put together._ _That's a lot for a spongy beam to hold... _His only consolation as he peered upwards was that there had been no scream. _Dick would have screamed if they fell. Unless..._ He gulped, his throat thickening. _...Unless he's already too far gone for that._

_I have to go up,_ a decision flooded him. _I can't wait here when they could be laying up there. If the Joker had his men watching the windows – there must be windows up top, right? – and they...I don't know, they shot Batman when he appeared or something...well...maybe not even that. Maybe he just tripped, or went through the floor like I thought and knocked himself out. God...and we're running out of time...I have to go,_ he reached forward along the rail. _I have to go..._

Before he could find out what sort of misery scaling the steep risers with only one good leg and a stiff hand would entail, bootsteps became audible. _He's running,_ Tim realized, his already parched mouth growing drier as the noise approached. _Batman doesn't run, not like this. Not loudly. Maybe he heard that snap, too...if that __was__ the start of a fuse, how much longer do we have?_

Batman swung around the last bend at such a high rate of speed that Tim didn't fully process his arrival until he'd already been grabbed and hauled upwards. "Ah, fucking _hell_!" he screamed as they about-faced and his wounded limb slammed into the wall. "Jesus, man!"

"No time!" was snarled back as they stormed upwards. Half-dismantled hallways flashed by once they reached level ground, a few made visible by the vague light filtering in from the street. "Listen!"

He listened, then tensed as his brain deciphered the message he hadn't been able to hear being broadcast under the building. _Counting,_ his scalp prickled. _The bastard's out there with a megaphone __counting__._

"Fifteen seconds, Batsy! Even if you make it, I think it's nighty-night for Nightwing; he's not looking so hot. But I guess the explosion will fix that," a titter rang out. "Make him nice and toasty."

_Dick. Where's Dick? _Robin craned his neck only to find that his mentor's other shoulder was empty. _Is he safe? I didn't see you call the car, but you wouldn't have just dropped him in the street with the Joker...so where did you leave him? You can't carry us both at once like this, not fast enough for us to get out, so where-_

"Count with me! Ten! Nine!"

They flew through a broken window, a shard of glass that had been left behind in the frame nicking Tim's ear as he tried to duck. _Ow!_ _Jesus, hasn't this night been __enough__?!_

"Eight! Seven!"

Litter-strewn asphalt filled his vision, broken only by the heels of the heavy boots bearing him away from the doomed structure. _The car. It's got to be the car, he __must__ have called it at some point when we were downstairs, but-_

"Six! Five!"

-_how close is it? _If it was too close, he knew, it might not withstand the blast despite its shielding. If it was too far, neither he nor Batman would live to find out if the design had held up. _And Dick,_ he fretted. _Where's Dick?_

"Four! Three!"

Tim felt himself go airborne as he was thrown from Bruce's shoulder. He landed on something, but had no chance to identify it before the full weight of the disguised billionaire sprawled over him and curled protectively. _Oh, jesus, we're going to die now,_ he thought woefully, and shut his eyes.

"Doors shut!" the figure atop him roared as a maniacal belly laugh shook the air. The cackle grated on the teen's psyche, making him cringe back against what he could only hope was Nightwing.

He was almost glad when the world exploded a second later; if nothing else, it drowned out the Joker.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: My apologies for the delay in posting this. I was out of town for the weekend and didn't have the internet access I expected to. However, here's a nice cliff-hanger free chapter for all of you lovely, patient readers. I will be posting one more chapter before all is said and done. Happy reading!**

* * *

"...Go home, top speed," Tim heard ordered when everything had stopped shaking and shifting. As he peered upward into the eerie green darkness, a low, steady rumble began underneath of him. _That's exactly what we need right now,_ he groaned, not having registered the purpose of the command that had been given. _An earthquake. Joy of joys._

His worry proved unnecessary a moment later. _The Batmobile, _he gave a grateful moan as the interior light clicked on and they began to move forward ._ It survived the blast. __We__ survived the blast. We're...we're safe._

The weight on top of him vanished. "Are you okay?" the cowled man inquired.

"Yeah, I'm peachy," Tim snorted. Trying to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs he'd landed in, he found that he had, as he'd hoped, been laying on his brother. "...He's not, though."

"I know. Can you get up front on your own?"

"I'll manage." Hissing, he pushed himself to his knees. A gauntleted hand appeared at his waist, guiding him to a perch on the console between the forward seats. From there he slid backwards, levering himself into the passenger chair and dragging his bad leg behind him. "Is he...?"

"He's in trouble," Batman answered, pulling Nightwing forward in order to fold down the backrest and access the trunk. "Check your leg, then get ready to help me. There's no room for the first aid kit back here; I'm going to need you to hand me supplies."

"Right." Tearing his eyes away from the dying man's damp, pallid skin, he examined his own injury. The bandage had vanished at some point during their mad dash for survival, but only a sluggish trail of blood had followed. _Thank god for neat through-and-throughs,_ he sighed, tugging his spare dressing out of the spartan medical pouch on his belt. His bad hand, he found when he tried to tie a knot, had swollen to the point where his first two fingers were all but useless. _Fuck!_ he cried as the fabric's ends fell away from each other for the third time. _Work, damn it! I need to help Batman!_

"Robin," his attention was recalled to the rear of the vehicle. Cursing, he gave up on addressing his wound and turned to find a large black box waiting at his elbow. He dragged it forward and dropped it into the driver's seat, then popped the lid open.

"What first?"

"There's a bag of saline on the second level, and an IV kit."

"Wouldn't blood be better?" he asked, rifling through the supplies.

"If we had any, yes. But you know we don't carry it in the car, and neither of us are his type."

"Shit. Here," he shoved the requested items into the elder vigilante's hands. "What else?"

"Have a pressure bandage ready."

"Right." Finding one easily, he watched as Nightwing's arm was stripped of its armor to the elbow. "...Trouble?" he asked when Batman gave voice to a frustrated harrumph shortly thereafter.

"His damn veins keep collapsing."

"...Is there anything-"

"Got one." The needle went in, and both of the conscious figures gave a sigh of relief.

"Will that be enough?"

"It's going to have to be," the cowled man grimaced, suspending the bag from a hook above the window. "It's the only fluid we have to give him. Bandage?"

"Bandage," Tim passed it over. "...Bruce?" he ventured as the fresh linen was tightened over the old, sodden one.

His mentor shot him a sideways look, but didn't lecture him about civilian name usage. "Yes?"

"Um...tell me he's going to be okay. I know you can't guarantee it or anything," the teen acknowledged before the man could object. "But...tell me he will be anyway?"

Batman, his task completed, let his hand rest on his eldest's knee and stared up at his slack expression for a long moment. "...He'll be okay, Tim," he whispered. "He's...he's strong. He'll be okay." Shaking himself, he began reaching under the seats. "Are you still bleeding?"

"No." Glancing down at his leg, he found that that wasn't quite a lie. "Well, not enough to count."

"I'll take a look at it in a minute."

"It's fine," he insisted. "Concentrate on Dick."

"I've done about everything I can for now other than monitoring him. If you can wait, though, I'll stay back here with him.

"I can wait."

"Then call Alfred and tell him to get Leslie on her way to the cave."

"Sure." He leaned forward to punch the proper buttons on the dash computer, groaning as the action pulled on his leg. "Shit, I hate getting shot..."

"There are painkillers in the first aid kit," Batman reminded him.

"I know. I'll get one in a minute. Actually...don't you think we should give _him_ one?"

"No. He's not feeling anything right now, and I'm not comfortable giving him something that has muscle-relaxing or nerve-blocking traits with as thready as his pulse is being."

"...Oh. Right." _I really wish you hadn't told me that last part, Bruce. I was good with not knowing that his heart's getting screwy. _"...Alfred?"

There was an immediate reply. "Master Robin?"

The butler's tone suggested that he knew there was a problem, and Tim winced. Telling Alfred the extent of Dick's injuries when they were still a solid twenty minutes from home seemed cruel. Holding back the information, though, would slow them in their attempt to get the wounded man stable, and that could have far greater reaching effect. "...We're going to need Leslie," he reported. "And, uh...blood. A lot of it."

There was a brief pause. "...Who is it for, young sir?" a tight question rang through.

"It's...it's for Nightwing." _Sorry, Alfred._

"I see. What other supplies should I have waiting?" How bad is he, the thick air between the Englishman's words queried.

"Uh...Batman?" he craned to look backwards, uncertain.

"Prepare to deal with hypovolemic shock," the cowled man took over the conversation. As he spoke he unfolded a heavy blanket and spread it over his unconscious son, tucking him in with a gentleness that made Tim's eyes sting. "He needs surgery for a probable nicked femoral artery once we get him stable enough to handle it. Robin will also require medical attention."

"Young sir?"

"It's nothing, Alfred, just a pair of holes in my calf and a dislocated thumb. I'm barely even bleeding. I can wait."

"Well, we'll assess that once you've arrived at home. Are you injured as well, Master Batman?"

"...No," a growl came from the backseat. "No, the bastard was careful to leave me in one piece."

"Very well. I shall call Dr. Thompkins and prepare to receive you. Is there anything further for now?"

"No."

"Then godspeed, sirs."

The line closed, and Tim turned back to the scene behind him. Batman had managed to squeeze himself into the space directly behind the driver's seat, and sat now with his bared hands at Nightwing's forehead and throat. The low rumble of the engine wasn't quite sufficient to overwhelm the unconscious man's raspy, too-fast respiration, but he couldn't think of anything to say to help cover those gut-wrenching breaths. _Godspeed,_ he gulped. _Thanks, Alfred. We're going to need it._

* * *

The butler was waiting as promised when they parked in the Batcave. Tim could do nothing to help as his brother was shifted onto a gurney and whisked away towards the section of the cave dedicated to medical needs. Batman, he could tell from his posture, wanted to rush after Dick; instead, he walked around to his door and opened it. "Come on, Robin," a tense invitation was offered. "You need looked at, too."

Before he had a chance to stand up the elder vigilante had ducked into the car and pulled him out of it. "...I could walk," he offered, slightly embarrassed by the tight cradle hold he was being carried in. _It wouldn't be much fun, _he decided when he attempted to flex his leg and found that it had stiffened in the car, _but at least then I wouldn't feel like I'm all of two years old._

"This is faster, and there's no point in aggravating your injuries."

"...Yeah..."

Neither spoke again until Batman had lowered him onto the second bed. "Did you take anything for pain in the car?"

"No," Tim answered, craning to see what was happening beside them. "I wanted to be alert in case you needed me for something."

The cowled man glanced over his shoulder. "Do you want something now?"

"Maybe...maybe something mild. Nothing that will knock me out, though," he requested. _I don't want to go to sleep until I know Dick's going to be okay._

"Right. Alfred, do you need-"

"You may attend to Master Tim, sir," the butler answered, not looking up from his examination of the bandages strapped over Nightwing's worst injury. "I won't be diving into this leg until Dr. Thompkins arrives. For the moment all we can provide is support care, and that doesn't require two sets of hands."

"...Fine. I'll be quick." With that he headed towards the changing area, looking back only three or four times before he was out of sight.

"...Alfred?" Tim asked when they were alone.

"Yes, young sir?"

"He's...he's going to be okay, right?"

"His wound is quite serious," the Englishman confessed, "and he's lost a great deal of blood, but the second bandage and the saline did very well at keeping him from worsening to a point of no return. We've got him on good blood now," he indicated the red fluid dangling over Dick's head, "and on oxygen as well. If he suffers a setback for some reason, we have the equipment here to deal with it. Barring any unforeseen complications during or after his surgery, I see no reason why he shouldn't recover. Although..."

A sudden frown creased his face, and he moved to the foot of the bed. Prying off Nightwing's boot and peeling away the blood-soaked sock beneath it, he wiped a large section of skin clean and pressed his fingers into it. "...That's all right, then," his expression lightened after a long minute.

"What is?" Tim, who had risen to his elbows when he saw the butler's mien grow more serious, inquired anxiously.

"I was concerned that the damage to his femoral artery may have reduced blood flow to his leg. It has, of course, but it seems that the wound is low enough for several other main vessels to have broken off above it. Those are providing his foot with enough oxygen to keep the tissues functioning. His response isn't as speedy as I'd like it to be – it took several seconds longer than usual for where I pushed to regain the color of the surrounding area – but it's there, which is a good sign. I daresay Master Dick doesn't need to deal with gangrene on top of everything else you all seem to have suffered this evening."

"...Yeah, let's skip the gangrene," Tim agreed fervently.

"Gangrene?" Bruce's fear-laden voice broke in as he returned from changing. "He's not-"

"He shouldn't have any problems with it, sir," Alfred soothed. "I just checked for blood flow, and while it is slow, it seems to be sufficient for the little while longer he'll have to wait."

The billionaire stared for a moment before giving an unsteady nod. "Okay. Good. Here, Tim," he set a pill and a small bottle down with shaking hands. "Let me help you with your gloves."

Little more was said for the next ten minutes. Once he'd wriggled out of his costume and taken his medicine, Tim lay back against the pillow. He could feel Bruce cleaning out his leg so that Alfred or Leslie could suture the holes shut, but he tried to ignore it. _God, I wish you'd wake up, Dick,_ he mused as he watched the work being done on his brother. _I know that's kind of awful, since you'd be in pain, but...at least then I could hear your voice. _

Having stripped his patient down as much as was possible without disturbing the dressings around his thigh, the butler covered him with a second blanket and proceeded to work on his broken nose. Slow, careful swipes with a damp cloth revealed the massive swelling and bruising that repeated contact with the tabletop had brought forth, and Alfred hissed. "What caused this?" he queried. "For that matter, sirs, what caused _all _of your injuries?"

Tim and Bruce glanced at one another. "You tell him," the man suggested. "I'm still cleaning this out, I don't want to be distracted by trying to explain tonight at the same time."

"...Okay." He didn't particularly want to relive the evening's experiences, but it wasn't fair to keep Alfred in the dark about everything when they were asking him to clean up the aftermath. Besides, he decided as a bolt of pain broke through the veil his pill had draped over his nerves, it might help distract him from the billionaire's motions down below. "Well, to give you an idea of where this is heading, we were dealing with the Joker."

"Ah," the older man's eyes grew stormy. "That in itself explains a great deal."

"Yeah...well, after he caught us he...he made Dick and I play Russian Roulette. The gun was empty," he added as the butler went pale, "but...he didn't tell us that part." The terror of those tense moments returned, and with them the certainty that he was about to watch his brother die. _It's over,_ he swallowed hard. _It's over, and we're home, and Leslie will fix him-_

"Boys..." The physician entered as if on cue and then paused, taking in the scene. "I was afraid my hunch was right," she lamented, shaking her head. "The Joker?"

"How did you know, Dr. Thompkins?" Alfred asked, casting a bloody rag aside and moving to take her coat.

"There was something about an Arkham breakout on the radio about an hour and a half ago. It didn't say the Joker was part of it, but...well, it seemed like a safe bet. I was already on my way when you called, that's why I made it so quickly." Casting a skilful eye over the numbers on the monitors Dick was hooked up to, she gave a little _hmm_. "Has he stabilized at all?"

"Yes," the butler replied. "His blood pressure is markedly better, as is his pulse. I pumped in the majority of the first bag – he was in a rather deep state of shock, and I didn't think I dared wait for it to drip – and as you can see he's midway through the second. He had saline, as well, on the way from the city."

"Poor baby. Well, we'll let him finish that dose off before we get to work. There's no point in rushing him. How about you, honey?" she turned to Tim. "Let me see what you came home with."

"It's not so bad," he insisted as she turned his leg to see better. "Ow!"

"'Not so bad'?" she raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you taken anything for pain? Or are you being stubborn?"

"I took a pill!"

"He took a Motrin," Bruce informed her. "He said he only wanted something mild."

"I didn't want to fall asleep until..." His eyes slipped over to Dick, then back to Leslie. "...You know, until I knew he was going to be okay."

"...Alfred, bring me something a little stronger than a Motrin, please. Tim," the woman turned back to the teen with a soft smile, "relax, okay? I haven't seen under his bandages yet, but his numbers are good for someone with a damaged femoral artery. He's just as stubborn as you are, and between Alfred and I there's no reason to think he won't be just fine."

"But-" _I can wait. I want to be sure..._

"But nothing," she slipped a needle into his arm. "Go to sleep, sweetheart. When you wake up, he'll be right here next to you, safe and just as sound as I can make him. Okay?"

"I...but...he..." He could feel his defiant look slipping from his face as the world began to fuzz out. "...Okay..." _You better be here, Dick,_ he thought forcefully. _You better be okay. You just...you just better be._


	7. Chapter 7

"Do I need to sedate you, too, before I leave?" Leslie asked Bruce a few hours later.

He looked up from his attempts to somehow pull the blanket covering his eldest even higher than his chin. "You can't sedate me."

"Will you promise not to go after the Joker tonight?"

"...Yes," he ground out. _I __should__ go after him, but...I can't leave Dick like this. I have to be sure he's going to wake up before I chase after that fucker._ After what they'd been put through that evening, he knew he would need all the help he could get to keep from going too far once he got his hands on the psychopath. Hearing the younger man's voice before he set off would make a huge difference in his ability to control himself; he didn't dare depart until that had occurred.

"Then I won't insist." She yawned. "I think I'll take Alfred's offer of one of the spare rooms. There's no point in falling asleep at the wheel, and I'll want to check them both again in the morning anyway." A knowing smile crept across her lips. "I'm guessing it's a complete waste of time for me to tell you to call up to one of us if you need to switch out?"

"Yes. It is."

"You need to sleep too, you know."

"I will."

"Both the beds are taken," she crossed her arms, still smiling.

"There are chairs. That's sufficient."

"Right. Of course." Shaking her head, she headed for the stairs. "Good night, Bruce."

"Good night."

When she'd gone, he let out a long breath and allowed his shoulders to hunch with exhaustion. _My boys,_ he glanced at each in turn. _What a night we've had. Let's never, ever repeat it._ His eyes squeezed shut as his memory replayed six deceitful _clicks_ and the two undeniable _booms _that had followed_. _Shuddering himself temporarily free of that recollected torture, he retrieved a chair from out by the computers and sat squarely between the beds. With nothing left to do but wait, he stared into the middle distance and tried not to think about anything.

Despite his best efforts, a hundred worries assaulted him. Leslie had said that Dick's leg would heal without permanent damage, but he couldn't keep himself from mentally redesigning the best prosthetic Wayne Enterprises' medical technology subsidiary had in order to make it suitable for night work. The Joker had played his game and was likely laying low in the aftermath, but he was still loose in Gotham and could put innocents at risk if the whim struck him. Tim had performed admirably that night, but had nevertheless evinced a deep doubt about his ability to be a good Robin...

The last one gave him pause. _I'm going to have to talk to him about that,_ he grimaced. It would have been easier to have Dick take care of the teen's uncertainty, since the two were close and the elder had a knack for convincing people of their own worth, but he sensed that that wouldn't do the trick this time. _It will mean more coming from me, if only because I never tell him he's doing well and Dick tells him all the time. _It wasn't going to be an easy conversation, but the effort would be worth it if it made his youngest believe that he was appreciated.

"Joker...bastard..._shit_..."

Bruce turned to his right to find Dick shifting vaguely. "Hey," he grasped the arm from which two lines, one full of the blood and the other dripping painkillers, rose. "Calm down. You're safe."

"Lying sonuva-"

_...Even slurring and cursing, I'm glad you have the strength to talk,_ he almost grinned. "Come on, chum. Either calm down or wake up. Don't thrash," he ordered as the limb under his hand tried to jerk. "If you pull these needles out or yank your stitches Leslie and Alfred will have simultaneous conniptions, and I don't think anyone wants to see that."

"...Mphh..." Dick's eyebrows drew down, then shot back up, their angle pained. "Ow..."

"Quit moving around. Your nose is broken, remember?"

"Don't want...Bruce..." His mouth worked. "Bruuuuce..."

"Right here, Dicky. Wake up for a minute, okay? I'm right here."

For a moment there was nothing but a low, wordless whine. Then the injured man's eyelids fluttered to half-mast, his irises sliding back and forth suspiciously as he checked on the world. Finally he looked up, his gaze unsteady but present. "...Bruce?"

"Right here. You okay?"

"Timmy..."

"Is fine." He scooted over in order to make the other bed visible. "See?"

It seemed to take Dick a great deal of energy to focus, but once he'd managed to verify his brother's safety Bruce felt him relax. "...He's okay?"

"He'll be fine. His injury was nothing compared to yours. And I'm not hurt," he added before the question could be broached. _Well...not physically, at least. _

"Liar," came a murmer and a faint smile as his first-born discerned the truth. "Tell the truth."

The billionaire shook his head, knowing that Dick couldn't possibly have the energy to dive into the myriad upsets that the night's events had stirred up. There was no doubt that he would insist on playing therapist down the line, but this wasn't the right time. "Later," he urged. "We'll talk about it later."

"No 'scuses."

"I know. I won't try to give any."

The tiny grin returned. "...Liar."

"How do you feel?" he tried to change the topic away from his personal mental state. "Do you need anything?"

"Uh-uh. Just...numb. Face hurts, but...numb." He frowned. "M'leg?"

"Leslie says it will be fine, so long as you stay off of it until she says otherwise."

"...Joint?"

For a second Bruce wasn't sure if Dick was asking if the bullet had done damage to his knee or if he was inquiring about his dislocated thumb. "Your knee wasn't affected. There shouldn't be any flexibility issues once the initial stiffness from recovery goes away. She popped your thumb back in without any problems. Tim's, too."

"Good," a relieved sigh was heaved. "...Ow," he repeated his earlier complaint.

"You might want to avoid doing that for a little while."

"...How bad?"

"Nothing we can't write off as walking into a door in the dark. You may have a _little_ bit of a bump for a while, but Leslie doesn't think it will be noticeable. And if it is," he shrugged, "we'll get you a nose job."

"Papers'll love it..."

"If they don't obsess over that, they'll find something else. It's non-stop with them, you know that," Bruce grimaced. "But don't worry about it for right now."

"Nah." A beat passed. "...Bruce?"

"Hmm?"

"'M sorry you had...uh...thing...seeing...sorry you saw."

"Saw what? Tonight?"

"Yeah."

"First off, don't apologize for something that isn't your fault."

"But-"

"No buts," he cut him off. "No arguments about how you shouldn't have been taken by surprise, or whatever else you were going to say. Remember, he caught me, too, and from what Tim said he got us all in the exact same way. Second," he returned to his original contention, "...I'm sorry I saw it, too. But if I hadn't been there to see it neither of you would be here now, so it's a price I don't mind paying."

"Bruce...sometimes you're funny," Dick smiled. "Guess that's..."

His lips completed the sentence, but his voice dipped to to inaudible levels as he was sucked back into unconsciousness. The billionaire waited a moment to see if he would come up again, and then chuckled. _Crazy kiddo, talking in your sleep, _he teased as he tucked the covers in more securely. Standing, he leaned over the head of the bed and offered a whispered sentiment of his own. "...Rest, chum. Everything's fine. Just dream good dreams and get well." _I'll take care of the Joker,_ he swore, _and then you'll take care of me. The cycle goes around once more..._

"...Bruce?" a fearful tone rang out behind him.

_Round two,_ he thought wryly. "It's okay," he swiveled to face him. "Relax."

"Is he okay?" the teen asked, struggling to rise to his elbows.

"Stay down," Bruce stopped him. "Dick's fine. You just missed him."

"He was awake?!"

"Yes." Joy and disappointment mingled on Tim's face. "What?"

"Nothing, I just..." He looked away. "It would have been nice to hear his voice, that's all."

"Mm. Well, you know how stubborn he is about doing what he's supposed to when he's hurt; he'll be awake again soon enough."

"Yeah, I guess. Did Leslie say if his leg's going to be okay?"

"She said he'll be fine. She said you'll be fine, too."

"...She's _sure_? He looks awfully pale..."

"He lost a lot of blood, Tim, he's going to look pale. He's still getting refilled, but he was coherent when he woke up. He wouldn't have woken up at all if he wasn't in better shape than when we brought him home. Besides that, the first thing he asked about was _you_, so you know he's all there."

"...I was really the first thing he asked about?"

"Yes. You were."

The teen shook his head. "He's such a dork, always worrying about everyone else when he's way worse off."

"Tell me about it," he muttered. It wasn't hard to imagine the hounding he was going to have to endure from his eldest until he gave in and admitted to all of the fears that had gone through his head tonight, and he wasn't looking forward to it. Still, he shook himself, it was far better than the alternative that had nearly come to pass. "How do you feel?"

"Tired. Groggy, from whatever Leslie gave me, but at least there's no pain."

"Good." He hesitated. "...Tim, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"...Okay...?"

Maybe, Bruce reflected, this wasn't the right time. Maybe he should wait until the teen wasn't on painkillers, or until he could have Dick coach him about exactly the right thing to say, or until... He sighed. The only thing waiting would do was make him less likely to say anything at all, and that wasn't fair to Tim. "I want to know why you think you should be a 'better' partner to Batman," he managed finally. "You knew that those might be the last words you ever spoke to me, so why the apology?"

"...Oh." He looked down at his hands, his mouth working. "I don't know, it was just...stupid. I was scared, and those were stupid last words. That's all."

"You wouldn't have said them if you didn't believe them."

"I...hell. No, I...I guess I wouldn't have. But..." Tim shrugged. "It's true. I _could_ be a better partner, but I'm not. What the Joker said was true," he added, his eyes flickering over to Dick briefly. "I'm not as good of a Robin as he was, and I never will be. I don't resent him for it or anything – it's not like it's his fault – but it's a fact that I have to live with. And it's a fact that you have to live with, too," he looked up, "so...yeah, I apologized for it. I wish I was as good as he is, Bruce, but I'm not. And I'm sorry for that."

"Tim..." _Did I do something to make you feel this way?_ He wondered. _Am I at fault here, even a little? _"You're not a _worse_ Robin than Dick was, you're a _different_ Robin. There are things that he can do that you simply _can't, _and that's not your fault. Hell, there are things he can do that I can't, too. You bring a different skill set to the table as a partner for Batman, that's all. That doesn't make you better or worse, regardless of what the Joker, of all people, says."

"He was _right_, Bruce," Tim insisted. "He said he knows us, and he does. He knows us better than we know ourselves, in some ways. Yes, I'm a different Robin than Dick was. Part of those differences, though, is what made him a better partner for Batman. You two..." he waved his unbandaged hand between them, "share something special. I don't even know how to describe it, because I've never been a part of anything like it. But it's there, and it _does_ affect your ability to work together. There's an extra level to your communication, to your familiarity with each other, that is completely unattainable for me.

"Don't you get it?" he peered at the man. "I...I wasn't apologizing to you. A little, yes, for the reason I said a minute ago, but...not entirely. I was also apologizing to _myself_, because...because I've never been truly close to someone in the way you two are close to each other. You're more than friends, more than partners, more than family, even. If I had died tonight, my biggest – maybe even my only – true regret would have been that I'd never found someone to be that way with."

"You're close to people," Bruce argued. _Damn it, this __is__ my fault._ "You and Dick-"

"Yes, I'm close to Dick," Tim cut him off. "Maybe I'm closer to him than I am to anyone else. I don't know, I haven't really sat down and analyzed it. He's my friend, and the brother I never had, but our relationship is on a whole other planet than yours is. That's not anyone's fault; I figure most people in the world don't ever have the sort of interplay that you two do. But it is something I wish I could experience from the inside someday. That's why I apologized, I think, Bruce. There might have been some guilt wrapped up in there about us getting caught, but the fact that the Joker got you the same way he did us kind of took care of that. They were dumb last words, and I'm sorry I said them just then and like that, but...I'm not sorry I feel that way. Okay?"

The billionaire considered his youngest for a long moment, surprised by his openness but grateful for it. "Okay, Tim," he nodded finally. "Okay. So long as you know that...that Batman doesn't think of you as a lesser Robin. You _do_ know that, right?"

"I know. Thanks," the teen smiled. "And thanks for not going right out after the Joker tonight, too. I don't think I would have enjoyed trying to pin Dick to the bed if he'd woken up and found you gone."

"It would be just like him to pull a boneheaded, stubborn move like trying to come after me with a lacerated femoral artery," Bruce snorted.

"Yeah. But hey, that boneheaded stubbornness is part of why we love him." With that, Tim settled back against his pillows. "...I'm going back to sleep now."

"Good. You need to rest."

"So do you."

"I will." _Once you're both asleep, I will_. _I think I might actually be able to, now._ "Good night, son."

A happy smile bolted across the teen's lips. "...Night," he whispered back, his voice not quite steady.

A few minutes later, Bruce rose and turned down the lights. His chair had shifted under his movements from one bed to the other, and he placed it back dead-center between them before sitting down again. From there, he discovered when he reached out for physical contact with his injured children, he could rest a hand on each of them, one set of fingers entwining with Dick's while the other lighted on Tim's forearm. The shelves that supported various medical monitors, some on, some dark, sat directly behind him, giving his head a place to rest when he tilted it back and closed his eyes.

_ ...My boys, _the thought trembled_. I'm so proud of you both. The Joker may know us, but he can't possibly fathom how fortunate I feel to still have you both with me tonight. He'll never understand that, and that's his weakness, and his loss. I would almost feel sorry for him, except... _His grip tightened slightly. _ Well. It doesn't matter. Sleep well tonight, boys. Tomorrow, _he swore_, justice will be done. I'll see to it._

* * *

**Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this last chapter, and the story as a whole! There should be a new story in 'A Spot of Tea' tomorrow, and new 'Turkey Song' in two or three days at the most. Happy reading!**


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